For Hacq, installed in an office inside the Algiers Police School under the name of “Professor Ermelin”, there now began a five-months’ methodical and relentless hunt, ending only when the O.A.S. had been tracked down. For Bitterlin and his barbouzes it almost immediately opened with disaster. Within three days of his having established Jim Alcheik’s team in a rented villa in the Chemin Raynaud, Bitterlin was ambushed by four Deltas. His driver was badly wounded in the abdomen, while Bitterlin received superficial shoulder wounds; but for the heavy steel of the old Mercedes in which they were driving they would both probably have been riddled with bullets.

XREF: Connects to the reader's broader knowledge of the OAS conflicts during the Algerian War and French counter-espionage operations. FICTION: The cover identity and villa-set ambush dynamics could seed spy-thriller material.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 1500